A Vindication of Natural Diet.Shelley, Percy Bysshe
Philosophy
A Vindication of Natural Diet.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
Vegetarianism
How plain a language is spoken by all this. Prometheus (who represents
the human race) effected some great change in the condition of his
nature, and applied fire to culinary purposes; thus inventing an
expedient for screening from his disgust the horrors of the shambles.
From this moment his vitals were devoured by the vulture of disease. It
consumed his being in every shape of its loathsome and infinite variety,
inducing the soul-quelling sinkings of premature and violent death. All
vice arose from the ruin of healthful innocence. Tyranny, superstition,
commerce, and inequality, were then first known, when reason vainly
attempted to guide the wanderings of exacerbated passion. I conclude
this part of the subject with an extract from Mr. Newton's Defence of
Vegetable Regimen, from whom I have borrowed this interpretation of the
fable of Prometheus.
"Making allowance for such transposition of the events of the allegory
as time might produce after the important truths were forgotten, which
this portion of the ancient mythology was intended to transmit, the
drift of the fable seems to be this: Man at his creation was endowed
with the gift of perpetual youth; that is, he was not formed to be a
sickly suffering creature as we now see him, but to enjoy health, and to
sink by slow degrees into the bosom of his parent earth without disease
or pain. Prometheus first taught the use of animal food (primus bovem
occidit Prometheus)[2] and of fire, with which to render it more
digestible and pleasing to the taste. Jupiter, and the rest of the gods,
foreseeing the consequences of these inventions, were amused or
irritated at the short-sighted devices of the newly-formed creature, and
left him to experience the sad effects of them. Thirst, the necessary
concomitant of a flesh diet," (perhaps of all diet vitiated by culinary
preparation) "ensued; water was resorted to, and man forfeited the
inestimable gift of health which he had received from heaven; he became
diseased, the partaker of a precarious existence and no longer descended
slowly to his grave."[3]
But just disease to luxury succeeds,
And every death its own avenger breeds;
The fury passions from that blood began,
And turned on man a fiercer savage--Man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account